PARIS IS BURNING (1990)

"...you're black and you're male and you're gay.  You're gonna have a hard fuckin' time.  If you're gonna do this, you're gonna have to be stronger than you ever imagined."

Filmed in New York City in the latter part of the 1980's, PARIS IS BURNING gives a small, but fascinating look into the NYC "ball culture".  Balls are (from what the film told me) a mix of dance, posing, performance, modeling, etc. where participants (mainly African-American and Latin American members of the LGBTQ community) get up in front the audience and strut their stuff like a motherfucker!!!  I mean work that shit!  It's dope.  I wish I knew how to move like that.  It'd be awesome!  Strutting around, pointing at the cat, voguing all up in her smug face.  "Mmmm-hummmm!!!  What are you gonna do about it?!"

Anyway, PARIS IS BURNING focuses solely on one certain group location in NYC.  We're shown the events of a ball, explained the different categories, terminology and introduced to some of the main players who all have bad ass names like Pepper LaBeija, Danni Xtravaganza, Octavia St. Laurent and Willi Ninja.  There's so much going on, you really can't even take it all in in just one viewing.  I had to watch it twice and it was great both times.

One of the sadder things I noticed (besides the racism, homophobia, cruel parents and murder) was how a lot of the people being interviewed wanted to be somebody else.  Like a person they saw on television (Dynasty, which ran from 1981 until 1989, is mentioned a few times) or somebody that is wealthy.  It was sad.  I wish more people, not just the people in this film, but people in general, could be happier with being themselves.  Realize that it doesn't take money or material possessions to give you value.  You, yes, you reading this, if you possess virtues like honesty, empathy, integrity, civility, modesty...then you have value.  Fuck sports cars, fuck big TV's, fuck boats, fuck motorcycles, fuck a powerful job...honesty, compassion, acceptance.  That is where it is at.   

Try to leave the world a better place than how you found it. And, if you find somebody to love (and they love you back), love them every single day like it is your last, because one day it will be.

Wow.  I got way off subject.  Long story, short: PARIS IS BURNING is a great documentary.  Quick pace, uplifting story, delightful people, unique subject matter, GHOSTBUSTERS on TV.  The entire thing was like a really cool time capsule.  Highly recommended.

If you need me, I'll be in my room sad voguing to $uicideBoy$.

ACROCATS! (2017)

"As I get older, time just slips by."

This was a mildly interesting little documentary.  When I rented this DVD (yes, I still go to a video store in 2019), I was hoping for an light-hearted and delightful film about cats jumping all over the place and doing wacky tricks.  Instead, the majority of ACROCATS! 57-minute runtime is about Samantha Martin, the person behind the show.  That's all well and good and it was definitely interesting (as well as depressing), but I would have been happier had there been more actual cat action.  The name of the movie is ACROCATS!, after all, with an exclamation point...not ON THE ROAD WITH THE CAT SHOW.

Lack of cat action aside, ACROCATS! is still worth watching.  Samantha seems like a genuinely nice person who really loves her cats.  Ummm...I can't really think of much more to say.  Quick runtime, good pace, way more serious than I was expecting, very little actual cat tricks, unexpected appearance by Pauly Shore (via old MTV footage), multiple conversations about lack of money that stressed me out, good camera work.

I am curious if the cats get any enjoyment out of doing the tricks or if they'd rather just be at home chillin'?

THE SOURCE FAMILY (2012)

"Father became interested in sexual magic."

We only have one life.  Some lives are long, some lives are short.  Everybody is born into a widely different set of circumstances and chances.  (Maybe something that would have been beneficial to a person born in Athens, Greece in 431 BCE would be horrible for a person born in Austin, TX in 1974?)  Once out and about, each person's life is made up of countless difference decisions and occurrences.  One of the ways that I enjoy spending my own personal life is by learning about how other people have lived their lives.  To me, it's endlessly fascinating to think about.  One of the lives that I recently had the pleasure of learning about (thanks to randomly coming across this documentary) is that of James Edward Baker.

James Baker's was born in 1922 and other than the fact that he had a stint in the military and was a bit of a hell-raiser, there's not a lot about his early life in the doc.  THE SOURCE FAMILY mainly focuses on him as a middle-aged man in Los Angeles in the 1960's.  He got into healthy eating, spirituality and drugs.  His rise to fame started when he opened the Source Restaurant on the Sunset Strip.  It soon became quite the money maker and a gathering place for young people.  Somehow, this silver tongued, self-proclaimed guru talked a bunch of teenagers and young adults (mostly females) into selling their earthly possessions and moving into his Hollywood Hills mansion.  For the next 6 years or so, The Source Family lived in various places, ate a bunch of healthy food, got high as kites being drug behind the Space Shuttle, did a lot of fucking and rocked out with some awesome jams in their own recording studio.  That's about it.  Nothing too crazy ever happens.  There's never a murder or group suicide.  They just hang out and party a bunch.  Eventually the Father dies (in a goddamn hang gliding accident of all things) and the Family simply drifts apart.  The End.  At their height, there was around 150 people in the Source Family.

The story of the Source Family is a wild ride.  Unfortunately, while the story had me laughing in disbelief over and over, the actual documentary itself was just a very straight forward presentation of facts one after the other with no real storytelling skill.  Example: at the very end of the film, literally a few seconds before the closing credits, a item popped up on the scene says "There were 54 home births in the family between 1972 - 1977."  Says whaaaaaat???  How the hell is something like that just tossed in at the end?  There was some mention earlier on about a teenage girl having a baby at home, but I didn't realize they had 54 babies!!!

Anyway, THE SOURCE FAMILY is definitely worth checking out.  Especially for anybody (like myself) that's interested in 1960's/1970's hippie communes, cults, etc.  For further reading check out the book "The Source: The Untold Story of Father Yod, Ya Ho Wa 13 and The Source Family" by Isis Aquarian and Electricity Aquarian.  Also, look up the music the Source Family created.  Some of that shit is badass!!!

NSFW screenshots